Tenant Screening Services: Compare Costs & Fit

The short answer

For most small landlords, the right tenant-screening service depends on the workflow you need, not on which report looks longest. For occasional screening, start with a pay-as-you-go bureau option; choose a human-reviewed specialist when careful record review matters most; choose an integrated landlord platform when the leasing workflow matters as much as the report; and treat a full property-management suite as a screening source only if you were already buying the suite. Two questions of law sit in front of all of that: whether your state lets you charge the applicant, and whether your city or county requires the criminal check to run after a conditional offer rather than with everything else. And if your written criteria and those local rules are not ready, the right answer today is no service at all.

• Start with SmartMove if you screen a few applicants a year and want direct TransUnion reports with no subscription.
• Start with RentPrep if you want an FCRA-certified screener to review background-search results before you see them.
• Start with TurboTenant if you want applications, screening, and leasing in one free workflow and applicant-paid fees are permitted and appropriate where you rent.
• Consider DoorLoop only if you are already evaluating a paid property-management suite for a larger portfolio.
• Choose no service yet if you have not written your rental criteria, checked your state and local screening rules, or prepared your authorization and adverse-action process — and note that a fair-chance jurisdiction such as Cook County, New York City, or New Jersey changes the order you must run the checks in before any of this applies.

On this page

• Before you compare: the FCRA and fair-housing gate
• Quick picks: the best tenant screening service by landlord situation
• How we selected these services
• Tenant screening services compared
  • Cost, payer, and contract
  • What four screenings actually cost
  • Compliance, coverage, and workflow
• Where your jurisdiction changes the screening decision
  • Application and screening fees by state
  • Fair-chance jurisdictions and the screening sequence
  • What each service can return where you rent
• Best-fit provider profiles
• Run a fair and defensible screening process
  • What counts as a consumer report
  • Criteria-to-report-field worksheet
  • Adverse-action notice checklist
• What to verify before you pay
• Match your situation to a tenant screening service
• Alternatives and when to choose no provider yet
• Tenant screening FAQs
• Choose the workflow, then the service

Before you compare: the FCRA and fair-housing gate

Before comparing anything, clear the process gate. Tenant background checks — credit, criminal, eviction, and reference reports compiled by a screening company — are consumer reports under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, which means you need a permissible housing purpose and proper authorization before ordering, and you owe the applicant an adverse-action notice when report information influences an unfavorable outcome, even in part. HUD's screening guidance of April 29, 2024 makes clear that the Fair Housing Act applies no matter what technology does the screening: the housing provider, not the software, remains responsible for the criteria, the decision, and the conduct. State and local law can add more — limits on application fees, on who can be charged for screening, and on how criminal or eviction records may be used — so no comparison table replaces a check of your own jurisdiction. If your situation involves an unusual record, a reasonable-accommodation request, source-of-income rules, or anything contested, bring in a fair-housing attorney or your local housing agency before you decide.

What needs attention now is your written criteria and your local rules; picking a provider, choosing report add-ons, and setting up applicant-paid fees can all wait, and some issues — jurisdiction limits on records, fee caps, suite subscriptions — apply only in some situations.

Quick picks: the best tenant screening service by landlord situation

Service	Best for	Not ideal for	Price basis	One key limitation
TransUnion SmartMove	Occasional, direct pay-as-you-go screening	Landlords who want screening bundled with applications and leases	$25–$49 per screening, plus tax where applicable	Basic tier omits the credit report and eviction-related report
RentPrep	Human-reviewed background-search work	Landlords who want a fully self-serve, instant workflow	$29–$49 per screening	Ordering runs through a Stessa account; background-only package is landlord-pay
TurboTenant	Screening inside a free leasing workflow	Situations where applicant-paid fees are restricted or unwelcome	$0 landlord software on the free plan; applicant pays $45–$55 per screening	Does not support the two-phase screening sequence some jurisdictions require
DoorLoop	Landlords already buying a property-management suite	Anyone shopping for screening alone	Suite from $69/month billed annually, plus $25–$45 per screening by plan	Not cost-effective as a screening-only purchase

The decisive criteria are the same for every option: whether the report fields match your written criteria and are usable in your jurisdiction; who pays and whether that is permitted where you rent; how the applicant authorizes the check; how the applicant can see and dispute the report; whether a human reviews the results; what records the service can actually return for your state; and the true total cost per completed screening, including any subscription.

Do this first. Write the criteria you will apply to every applicant, identify the exact report field that supports each criterion, and check your state and local restrictions on application fees, applicant-paid screening, and criminal or eviction record use. Only then compare providers. If this is your first rental, the first time landlord checklist puts this step in the context of the full leasing sequence.

How we selected these services

This page compares four services because four passed the gates, not because four made a tidy list. To qualify, a service had to fit long-term rental screening for first-time and small landlords; publish current, official documentation of its pricing and core workflow; operate a legitimate consumer-reporting workflow appropriate for rental decisions, with an applicant authorization or identity step and a discoverable dispute path; and represent a genuinely distinct category rather than a near-duplicate of an option already covered. Provider facts were verified against official provider pages between July 23 and August 10, 2026, and are rechecked before publication and on a quarterly cadence, or sooner when a provider changes its pricing or terms.

Every consequential fact on this page links to the provider's own pricing, help, or terms page — never to another provider's comparison of it, and never to a review site — and where an official page does not state a fact, the tables say "not published" or "confirm before ordering" rather than filling the gap. Legal and process claims come from the FTC, HUD, CFPB, and the named state, county, and city authorities linked where each claim appears. Where a state's own legislature or agency page could not be reached for this update, the table says so in the citation cell and names the statute text publisher used instead, so you can see exactly how firm each row is.

We do not score, rank, or weight providers, and no numerical rating appears on this page. The best-fit labels come from documented workflow differences — payer structure, review model, consent flow, and platform context — applied to common landlord situations. How this page is funded: Rental Income HQ is supported by advertising and, on some pages, disclosed referral links. No provider has paid for placement, ordering, or inclusion on this page, and compensation never determines what is included or how it is ranked. If a compensated link is added to this page, it will be disclosed here.

About this comparison. This page is a provider comparison and a screening-process guide for landlords of roughly one to ten long-term rental units, published by Rental Income HQ. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your own jurisdiction check: the fee and fair-chance tables below cover the states and localities named in them and nothing else. Provider facts and legal citations were checked on August 10, 2026; the whole page is scheduled for review by November 10, 2026, or sooner if a provider or a named jurisdiction changes a rule. If you find a price, rule, or citation that has moved since then, report it to hello@rentalincomehq.com and we will correct it on the schedule above.

Considered but not included. Personal people-search and background-lookup products were excluded as a category because they fail the consumer-reporting gate for rental decisions (evaluated as of July 27, 2026): they are not built to satisfy FCRA consumer-report requirements and give the applicant no authorization or dispute path in the rental process. Enterprise and custom-volume screening programs were deferred because they fail the audience-fit gate for one-to-ten-unit landlords. Four platforms that do serve this audience were evaluated by name and excluded on the duplication gate as of August 10, 2026: Avail, Innago, and RentRedi are integrated landlord platforms whose screening runs inside a leasing workflow, the category already represented here by TurboTenant, and Buildium is a property-management suite, the category already represented by DoorLoop. That is an editorial scoping decision about this page, not a finding about those products — all four are compared as software at best landlord software.

Tenant screening services compared

The two matrices below carry the repeated comparison facts for all four services; the profiles that follow add only what changes the decision, and the jurisdiction section between them carries what each service can actually return where your property sits. Screening prices are per screening (per applicant) unless noted; software prices state their own basis. "Where permitted" appears wherever a payer choice depends on state or local law.

Cost, payer, and contract

Columns run in the same order in both matrices: TransUnion SmartMove, RentPrep, TurboTenant, DoorLoop.

	TransUnion SmartMove	RentPrep	TurboTenant	DoorLoop
Product type	Standalone bureau screening	Specialist screening with human review	Free landlord platform with integrated screening	Paid property-management suite with integrated screening
Price and payer	$25 Basic, $40 Plus, $49 Premium per screening, plus tax where applicable; landlord or applicant pays, where permitted	$29 credit package, $29 background check, $49 complete package per screening; background check is landlord-pay only; other packages offer landlord or applicant pay	Landlord software $0 on the free plan; paid plans priced by units managed and billed annually — Essentials $149 to $349/year, Pro $199 to $999/year; applicant pays $55, reduced to $45 for Pro plan subscribers; landlord-pay option available	Suite from $69/month billed annually; screening $45, $35, or $25 per report by plan, paid by the applicant by default
Typical turnaround	Most reports same day after the applicant verifies identity	Not stated on official pages; confirm before ordering	Within 2 days once identity is verified, extended by 24–48 hours when further verification is needed	Not stated on official pages; confirm before subscribing
Contract and account	No subscription or membership; free account, pay per report	No subscription; free account; Stessa account is part of the ordering flow	Free plan has no contract; paid plans billed annually	Paid subscription; confirm cancellation and data-export terms before subscribing
Platform context	Screening only	Screening plus Stessa's landlord tools	Full leasing workflow: listings, applications, leases, rent collection	Full property-management suite: accounting, maintenance, leasing, portals

One published price in this table does not resolve cleanly, and it is disclosed rather than smoothed over: DoorLoop's starting price does not state how many units it includes. The unit count is stated inconsistently across DoorLoop's own pages and third-party trackers, and no onboarding or implementation charge is published — get both in writing before you subscribe.

What four screenings actually cost

Because these four products have different scopes — two are pay-per-report services, one is a free platform with applicant-paid reports, and one is a paid suite — comparing their list prices directly is misleading. Put them on one basis instead, the per-completed-screening basis: landlord subscription cost, plus per-report fees, plus add-ons, plus applicant-paid charges where permitted, per completed screening. The table below runs that basis across a low, base, and high year on stated assumptions only — prices as verified July 23 to August 10, 2026, excluding tax, one vacancy in the low and base cases, SmartMove priced at Plus and RentPrep at the complete package, TurboTenant on the free plan and DoorLoop on the starting tier.

Cost on one basis	Low: 1 completed screening	Base: 4 completed screenings	High: 10 completed screenings
TransUnion SmartMove (Plus, $40)	Landlord $40	Landlord $160	Landlord $400
RentPrep (complete, $49)	Landlord $49	Landlord $196	Landlord $490
TurboTenant (free plan, applicant pays $55)	Landlord $0 · applicants $55	Landlord $0 · applicants $220	Landlord $0 · applicants $550
DoorLoop (starting tier, $69/month billed annually)	Landlord $828 · applicants $45	Landlord $828 · applicants $180	Landlord $828 · applicants $450

One line drives the whole spread, and it is different for each product. For the two pay-per-report services, the driver is the number of completed screenings and nothing else. For TurboTenant, volume changes nothing for you and everything for your applicants — a real cost that may be regulated where you rent. For DoorLoop, the driver is the subscription, which does not move with screening volume at all: at one screening a year the landlord pays roughly twenty times SmartMove's cost for the same decision, which is only fair to DoorLoop if you wanted the suite anyway. These are cost illustrations of published prices, not projections of anyone's screening outcomes or rental returns.

Three things in this table matter more than any single price:

• The payer structure is a legal question before it is a pricing question. Applicant-paid screening is a pricing choice only where applicable law allows it, and several states cap or condition application fees — see the state table below for ten of them.
• The consent workflow determines your timeline. Every one of these services waits on the applicant to authorize or verify identity, so the applicant, not the landlord, often controls when the report arrives.
• No cell in this table makes a housing decision lawful. A provider can supply the report and a workflow; the criteria, the individualized review, the decision, and the notices remain yours.

Compliance, coverage, and workflow

Same four services, same order: TransUnion SmartMove, RentPrep, TurboTenant, DoorLoop.

	TransUnion SmartMove	RentPrep	TurboTenant	DoorLoop
What the report covers	Basic: ResidentScore and criminal background report; Plus adds full credit and eviction-related reports; Premium adds Income Insights and Identity Check	Credit package: full credit report, ResidentScore, bankruptcies; background check: SSN verification, nationwide criminal and sex-offender search, nationwide evictions, judgments and liens, bankruptcies; complete package combines both	Credit, criminal, and eviction checks through RentButter; income and employer verification on the higher paid tier	TransUnion's SmartCheck Plus package — credit, criminal, and eviction-related reports inside the DoorLoop application flow
Consent and identity workflow	Landlord invites the applicant by email; the applicant verifies identity and consents online before reports are shared	Ordered through a Stessa account; the complete package requires the applicant to confirm consent by email; the background check runs on the authorization you collected with the application	Applicant applies, authorizes, and completes RentButter identity verification; the landlord cannot see the report until the applicant approves the request	Applicant completes the online application and authorizes screening under DoorLoop and TransUnion terms
Human review model	Automated reports with the proprietary ResidentScore; you interpret the results	FCRA-certified screener review on the background check and complete packages	Automated RentButter reports	Automated TransUnion reports
Applicant dispute path	TransUnion rental-screening dispute process	Applicant copy and dispute handled by RentPrep under its terms	Applicants request their copy from RentButter, not from TurboTenant	Disputes go to TransUnion as the report source
Adverse-action support	Adverse-action template published; the notice duty stays yours	Terms place authorization, criteria, adverse-action duties, and the decision on the landlord; no notice template published	Help center directs you to the FCRA notice rules and links the FTC; no notice template published	Application decision tracking for rejections; no notice template published
Data retention and export	Not published on the pages reviewed; confirm before ordering	Not published on the pages reviewed; confirm before ordering	Not published on the pages reviewed; confirm before ordering	TransUnion sets a 30-day expiration on downloaded reports; DoorLoop's help center tells you to download and attach them to the lease to keep them
What this service does not do	Does not collect rental history or references, and does not decide — ResidentScore is an input you interpret against your criteria	Does not deliver instantly or publish a turnaround, and review is a data-quality check, not a legal opinion	Does not let you switch payer after the applicant pays, and does not support the two-phase sequence some jurisdictions require	Does not work as a standalone screening purchase, and does not make a marked-up application fee lawful

Where your jurisdiction changes the screening decision

Two different things vary by place, and landlords routinely confuse them. The first is what the law lets you do — whether you may charge the applicant, which records you may consider, and in what order you must run the process. The second is what your service can physically return, because record custodians and the screening companies themselves restrict coverage state by state. A service can be perfectly legal and still be unable to answer the question your criteria ask.

Rule class	What it changes for you	Who sets it	Where to check
Application fees and who may be charged	Whether applicant-paid screening is available at all, the maximum you may charge, and whether any part is refundable	State statute, and city or county ordinance in some markets	The state table below, then your state attorney general's office and your city or county housing department
Criminal-record use and screening sequence	Whether you may consider criminal history, how far back, and whether the criminal check must come after a conditional offer or prequalification	City, county, or state fair-chance law	The named authority in the fair-chance table below, or the state and local fair housing agency for your area
Source-of-income and voucher protection	Whether you may screen on how the rent is paid, and how an income multiple may be applied to subsidized rent	State or local civil-rights law, on top of the federal Fair Housing Act	Your state or local fair housing agency
Record availability	What the report can physically return, whatever your criteria say	Record custodians and the screening company	The provider's own coverage disclosure, in the third table below

Application and screening fees by state

Who pays for screening is a legal question before it is a pricing question, and the answer is set by state statute in a meaningful minority of states. The ten states below were verified against the statute or administrative rule on August 10, 2026. This table covers those ten states only. If your state is not listed, that means we have not verified it for this update — not that no rule exists — so check with your state attorney general's office and your city or county housing department before you set a fee. Two rows — Colorado and Oregon — cite a legal publisher's copy of the statute because the state's own page could not be reached for this update; the citation cell says so.

State	What the law limits	Amount limit	Receipt, refund, or disclosure duty	Governing citation
California	The screening fee may not exceed the landlord's actual out-of-pocket cost of gathering information about the applicant — including the cost of a screening service or credit report — plus the reasonable value of time spent, and no fee may be charged when the landlord knows no unit is or will soon be available	Statutory base of $30 per applicant set in 1998, adjusted annually for the Consumer Price Index. Published current-year figures disagree — the Berkeley Rent Board publishes $68.96 for 2026, while several landlord-industry sources publish figures in the mid-$60s. Confirm the current adjusted maximum before charging	Receipt itemizing out-of-pocket expenses and time spent; refund of any part of the fee not used when no credit report or reference check is performed	Civil Code § 1950.6 — official
Colorado	The entire fee must be used to cover the landlord's costs of processing the application, based on actual or average expense, and the same amount must be charged to every applicant for that unit or any other unit offered at the same time	No flat cap; the fee is bounded by actual or average processing cost. No fee at all may be charged if the applicant supplies a portable tenant screening report under § 38-12-904(1.5)	Disclosure of anticipated expenses or an itemization of actual expenses, plus a receipt for every fee received	C.R.S. § 38-12-903 — statute text via legal publisher; official state page not reached for this update
Massachusetts	Before a tenancy begins a landlord may require only first month's rent, last month's rent, a security deposit up to one month's rent, and the cost of a new lock and key	No application or screening fee is on that list, so a landlord may not charge one. Licensed real-estate brokers are regulated separately	Not applicable — the charge itself is not permitted	G.L. c. 186, § 15B, as explained by Massachusetts Legal Help
New York	A fee may reimburse the cost of a background check and credit check only	The cumulative fee may not exceed the actual cost of the checks or $20, whichever is less, and must be waived entirely if the applicant provides a copy of a background or credit check conducted within the past 30 days	The fee may not be collected unless the landlord gives the applicant a copy of the check and the receipt or invoice from the entity that ran it	Real Property Law § 238-a — official
Oregon	The screening charge may cover only the cost of obtaining information about the applicant, and only one charge may be required per applicant in any 60-day period regardless of how many of the landlord's units they apply for	No flat cap; the charge may not exceed the landlord's average actual cost, or the customary amount charged by screening companies for comparable screening, whichever is lower	Receipt for the charge, confirmation and a copy of the screening company's receipt after each screening, and a refund within a reasonable time if the unit is filled before screening or no screening is run	ORS 90.295 — statute text via legal publisher; official state page not reached for this update
Texas	No cap on the fee; the requirement is disclosure of your tenant selection criteria	No statutory maximum	Printed tenant selection criteria and the grounds for denial must be made available when the application is provided, with a signed acknowledgment. If you reject an applicant and did not make that notice available, you must return the application fee and any application deposit	Property Code § 92.3515 — official
Vermont	A landlord or a landlord's agent may not charge an application fee to any individual applying for a residential rental	No fee permitted	The landlord must accept listed forms of government identification or an ITIN in order to run a background or credit check	9 V.S.A. § 4456a — official
Virginia	An application fee is permitted and is nonrefundable, separately from any refundable application deposit	The application fee may not exceed $50, exclusive of actual out-of-pocket expenses paid to a third party for background, credit, or other pre-occupancy checks. Lower ceilings apply to HUD-regulated units — confirm yours	Refund duties attach to the application deposit rather than the fee; confirm the current timetable in the statute	Va. Code § 55.1-1203 — official. The section is scheduled to be amended effective July 1, 2027; recheck before that date
Washington	The landlord may charge for screening costs only if it first gives written notice of what information will be accessed, what criteria may result in denial, and — where a consumer report is used — the reporting agency's name and address and the applicant's rights to a free copy on adverse action and to dispute it	Actual costs, and no more than the customary costs charged by a screening service in the general area	The written pre-screening notice is the condition of charging at all; an adverse-action notice in the statutory form is required, and a violation exposes the landlord to up to $100 plus costs and attorney fees	RCW 59.18.257 — official
Wisconsin	A landlord may require the actual cost of a nationwide consumer credit report, and other application or move-in charges are treated as earnest money deposits under the same rule	Actual cost, capped by the maximum set in Wis. Stat. § 704.085(1)(a) — commonly reported as $25; confirm the current figure in the statute	The applicant must be told the charge before the report is ordered, and must be given a copy of the report	Wis. Admin. Code ATCP 134.05(4) — official

Read this table before you decide who pays. Applicant-paid screening at $45 to $55 is a normal arrangement in most of the country and unlawful in Vermont and, for landlords, in Massachusetts; in New York the same arrangement is capped at $20 and waived outright if the applicant brings a recent report. That is not a detail you can fix after an applicant has paid.

Fair-chance jurisdictions and the screening sequence

The sequencing rule is the one that catches small landlords, because it changes the order of operations rather than the criteria. A fair-chance housing law is a state or local rule that governs when — and sometimes whether — criminal history may enter a tenant-screening decision, and the workflow it requires is usually called two-phase or phased screening: you run everything except the criminal check first, prequalify or make a conditional offer, and only then look at criminal history — and running the standard bundle in the usual order can put you out of step with the ordinance before you have read a single record.

TransUnion's SmartMove identifies nine jurisdictions where its own workflow requires the non-criminal bundle first: Ann Arbor MI, Berkeley CA, Cook County IL, Detroit MI, Montgomery County MD, New Jersey statewide, New York City, Oakland CA, and Washington DC. That list is a vendor's operational classification, and it does not map one-to-one onto what each law actually requires. We checked all nine against their governing authorities on August 10, 2026, and the differences matter: three of them — Berkeley, Oakland, and Ann Arbor — are closer to prohibitions on using criminal history at all than to a sequence you can run in a different order, and several carry exemptions for small owner-occupied properties that describe a large share of this site's readers. Do not treat "supported by my screening tool" as a compliance answer.

Jurisdiction	How it works	What may be considered after the gate	Small-owner exemption	Authority, effective date, verification
Cook County, IL	Sequencing. Prequalify on non-criminal criteria first; only a prequalified applicant moves to a criminal background check. Any conviction found requires a documented individualized assessment — a case-by-case review of the nature, seriousness, and age of the offense and any evidence of rehabilitation, rather than an automatic denial — and the applicant has a right to dispute a denial	Convictions within a three-year lookback. Convictions older than three years may not be used to deny the application	Not published on the screening-process document reviewed; confirm with the Commission	Cook County Commission on Human Rights, Just Housing Amendment screening process, rev. Jan. 27, 2022; enforcement effective Feb. 1, 2020. Verified
New York City	Sequencing with hard record limits. No criminal inquiry or search before a written conditional offer, and a Fair Chance Housing Notice must accompany the offer. The applicant gets at least five business days to respond, and an individualized assessment is required even if they submit nothing	Convictions requiring sex-offender registration, regardless of date; felony convictions where release or sentencing was within the past five years; misdemeanor convictions within the past three years. Arrests, pending cases, sealed or pardoned records, and older convictions are never reviewable	Yes — buildings with two or fewer units where the owner or the owner's family lives on site, and owner-occupied room rentals	NYC Commission on Human Rights, Fair Chance Housing notice; Local Law 24, effective Jan. 1, 2025. Verified
New Jersey (statewide)	Sequencing with record limits. No criminal-history question or check before a conditional offer. Withdrawal of the offer requires an individualized assessment and is permitted only where it serves a substantial, legitimate, non-discriminatory interest, with a disclosure statement, a notice of withdrawal, and appeal rights	Convictions for first-degree indictable offenses within six years; second- or third-degree within four years; fourth-degree within one year — plus the specific offense categories the statute lists separately	Not verified for this update; confirm with the Division on Civil Rights	NJ Office of the Attorney General, Division on Civil Rights; N.J.S.A. 46:8-52 et seq., effective Jan. 1, 2022. Verified
Washington, DC	Sequencing with record limits. No inquiry about a pending accusation or conviction before a conditional offer, and eligibility criteria must be disclosed in writing before you accept an application fee. Withdrawal requires a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest, written reasons, and notice of the right to complain to the Office of Human Rights	Pending accusations or convictions within the past seven years, and only for the specific offenses listed in the statute. A previous arrest that did not result in a conviction may never be considered	Exclusions are listed separately at D.C. Code § 42–3541.03; check whether yours applies	D.C. Code § 42–3541.02; D.C. Law 21-259, enforced from Oct. 1, 2017 by the DC Office of Human Rights. Verified
Montgomery County, MD	Sequencing with record limits, plus disclosure duties. No criminal-record question on the application and no record check before a conditional offer. Your screening processes and requirements must be disclosed in the rental application, and a disclosure statement must be posted on your website and in any leasing office. Rescinding an offer requires giving the applicant the report, naming the items relied on, and waiting seven days for them to show an inaccuracy	Sex-offense convictions and registry presence, and convictions outside the excluded categories. Never: arrests without conviction, listed minor offenses, misdemeanor convictions once two years have passed since both the conviction and the end of any incarceration, and expunged or juvenile records	The definition of "housing provider" excludes lessors of accessory dwelling units and lessors covered by § 27-14(a); read that section for your situation	Montgomery County Code § 27-15A (Housing Justice Act, 2021 L.M.C. ch. 9, amended 2024 and 2025). Verified
Berkeley, CA	Prohibition, not sequencing. Housing providers may not ask about criminal history, require its disclosure or authorization, or take adverse action on it, and may not advertise criminal-history exclusions	Effectively nothing through an ordinary background check. The narrow exception is the California sex-offender registry, which may be checked only after the applicant qualifies on all other criteria, receives a conditional rental agreement, is told in advance, and gives written consent	Yes — owner-occupied properties of one to three units where an owner of record lives in a unit as a primary residence, plus certain sublet and roommate situations	Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board, Fair Chance ordinance page; B.M.C. 13.106, effective March 10, 2020. Verified
Oakland, CA	Prohibition, not sequencing. Providers may not inquire into or run criminal background checks, may not take adverse action on criminal history, and may not demand a higher deposit or rent because of it	Effectively nothing through an ordinary background check. The narrow exception is the state lifetime sex-offender registry, after a conditional offer, with consent and a chance to rebut	Yes — owner-occupied single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes and accessory dwelling units where the owner lives on the property, plus roommate and co-tenant additions	City of Oakland, Fair Chance Access to Housing Ordinance; O.M.C. ch. 8.25, effective Feb. 4, 2020. Verified
Ann Arbor, MI	Prohibition, not sequencing. The ordinance applies to any landlord with one or more rental units in the city and bars using criminal history in tenant selection. Adverse action based on criminal history requires giving the applicant the report, an opportunity to respond with rebutting or mitigating information before denial, and instructions for filing a complaint with the city	Only the narrow categories the chapter leaves available; the city describes its exclusions as the narrowest of the major fair-chance laws	Not published on the pages reviewed. Public housing agencies and permanent supportive housing providers are outside the chapter	City of Ann Arbor, rental housing laws; Code of Ordinances ch. 122. Effective date not verified on the pages reviewed
Detroit, MI	Sequencing, with the operative detail not published on the city's own page. The city states that its Fair Chance Ordinance regulates the use of criminal background checks and that violations can be filed with the Civil Rights, Inclusion and Opportunity Department and can result in a misdemeanor	Not published on the city page reviewed	Not published on the city page reviewed. Coverage reporting at adoption described an exemption for landlords with fewer than five units; we could not verify that against the ordinance text, so do not rely on it	City of Detroit, Civil Rights, Inclusion and Opportunity Department. Partial — confirm the covered-landlord threshold, the required sequence, and the lookback with CRIO before ordering

This table covers the nine jurisdictions the compared services flag, and nothing else. Other states, counties, and cities regulate criminal-history screening as well; a jurisdiction's absence here means we have not verified it, not that it has no rule. Check your own with the state and local fair housing agency for your area before you order anything.

If you already ordered the criminal check out of order. Stop and do not act on the record: do not withdraw the application, raise the deposit, or add a co-signer on the basis of it. Note what was ordered and when, keep the record out of the decision file, and contact the local human-rights or fair-housing agency named in the table above — or a fair-housing attorney — before you communicate any decision to the applicant. In several of these jurisdictions, merely receiving criminal history you were not entitled to see shifts the burden onto you to show you did not rely on it.

What each service can return where you rent

Service	Criminal-record coverage	Eviction-record coverage	Two-phase sequencing jurisdictions	Source and provider revision date
TransUnion SmartMove	Returned in 30 named states — Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin — and not returned in the remaining 20 states or DC	Not returned in Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, South Dakota, or Wyoming, and limited in 21 further states with a county-level list published	Supported through a two-bundle workflow: non-criminal bundle first, criminal-only bundle after you certify the applicant met your preliminary criteria	SmartMove disclaimer — criminal rev. 1/14/2026, eviction rev. 8/4/2026; checked August 10, 2026
RentPrep	Not published on the pages reviewed; records are hand-compiled by FCRA-certified screeners rather than pulled from one instant database, so ask what is returned for your state	Not published on the pages reviewed; confirm before ordering	Not published on the pages reviewed; confirm before ordering	RentPrep packages and pricing — no coverage disclosure found, checked August 10, 2026
TurboTenant (RentButter)	Nationwide coverage stated, subject to state suppression rules — shortened lookbacks in states such as Colorado and New York, and non-convictions withheld in states such as Massachusetts and Hawaii	Included in the standard report; no state exclusions published	Not supported. In Cook County, Detroit, Montgomery County, Oakland, Berkeley, and Washington DC the report shows whether records exist but withholds the charge details	How do I read a tenant screening report — provider date June 2, 2026; checked August 10, 2026
DoorLoop	Same TransUnion coverage as SmartMove; DoorLoop's help center routes you to TransUnion's own jurisdiction list	Same TransUnion coverage as SmartMove	Not published on the pages reviewed; the reports come from SmartMove, so confirm whether DoorLoop's application flow supports the two-bundle sequence	Request screening reports from TransUnion — provider date May 4, 2026; checked August 10, 2026

Read the coverage row before the price row. If your property sits in a state where your service cannot return the records your criteria test, or in a jurisdiction whose sequencing your service does not support, the service does not fit — whatever it costs, and however good the workflow is everywhere else. That is a legitimate reason to choose a different provider, or to run the criminal check through a separate compliant process, and it is worth ten minutes before you open an account rather than a week into a vacancy.

Best-fit provider profiles

The one-line verdicts live in the quick-pick cards above; these profiles add the workflow, the trade-offs, and what to confirm before you pay. No service here is a confirmed affiliate of this site.

TransUnion SmartMove

The workflow is the simplest of the four: create a free account, enter the applicant's email and choose the package and payer, and the applicant verifies identity and consents online; most reports arrive the same day after verification, per SmartMove's official pages. The decisive nuance is package scope. The $25 Basic package returns the ResidentScore and a criminal background report but no credit report and no eviction-related report — if your written criteria test credit or eviction history, Basic cannot support them, and you would need Plus ($40) or Premium ($49).

The ResidentScore is a proprietary score, which means it is an input requiring your own interpretation against your criteria, never a decision. SmartMove publishes an adverse-action template as a resource, but a template does not complete the duty: the notice obligation, and its content, remain the landlord's responsibility. Plan the package around your criteria rather than the other way around: write the criteria first, then buy the cheapest package that evidences all of them. Before you pay, confirm: (1) which criminal and eviction records can actually be returned for your property's state and city; (2) whether your jurisdiction permits your chosen payer arrangement; (3) current package prices and applicable tax. Revisit this choice if your criteria change to require income verification, or your state's record availability changes.

RentPrep

RentPrep's distinguishing feature is human review: the background check and complete packages advertise review by an FCRA-certified screener before results reach you, which can catch mismatched or duplicate records that automated pipelines pass through. Its screening reports are now delivered through Stessa, so the ordering flow includes a Stessa account — fine if you welcome the attached landlord tools, friction if you wanted a standalone purchase. Package structure matters here: the $29 credit package is automated and includes the full credit report; the $29 background check is human-reviewed but contains no credit report and is landlord-pay only; the $49 complete package combines both with review and offers landlord or applicant pay.

RentPrep's terms place authorization, criteria, adverse-action duties, and the final decision squarely on the landlord — read them as a statement of your obligations, not a transfer of them. Human review also trades some speed for accuracy checking, and RentPrep states no turnaround on its official pages — so budget extra days into a vacancy timeline rather than assuming instant delivery. It also publishes no state coverage disclosure, which is the one place its evidence is thinner than the others on this page. Before you pay, confirm: (1) current package contents and turnaround for your state; (2) which package supports each of your written criteria; (3) how your applicant requests their copy and disputes errors. Revisit this choice if you start screening more than about once a month, or a vacancy timeline stops tolerating an unpublished turnaround.

TurboTenant

TurboTenant makes sense when screening is one step in a leasing workflow you want anyway: the free landlord plan includes listings, applications, and screening, with paid plans priced by units managed — Essentials runs $149 a year for one to ten units and rises to $349 at sixty-one or more, Pro runs $199 and rises to $999 — adding lower applicant fees, unlimited state-specific leases, and income and employer verification at the higher tier.

The trade-offs are structural. By default the applicant pays the screening fee — $55, reduced to $45 for Pro plan subscribers per TurboTenant's help center, though its plan grid presents lower screening fees as a paid-plan feature generally, so confirm which tier actually reduces it — and that fee is free to the landlord but is still a real cost to the applicant and may be capped or restricted where you rent; a landlord-pay option exists but must be chosen before the applicant starts their application, and the payer cannot be switched once payment happens. Reports run through RentButter and require the applicant to approve the request and verify identity, and additional verification checks can extend delivery by 24–48 hours — so your timeline depends on applicant follow-through. The hard disqualifier is jurisdictional: TurboTenant states plainly that it does not support the two-phase screening process used in Cook County, Detroit, Montgomery County, Oakland, Berkeley, and Washington DC, and returns only the existence of records there rather than the details. Before you pay (or before your applicant does), confirm: (1) that applicant-paid screening at these amounts is permitted for your property's location; (2) current plan pricing for your unit count; (3) exactly which report fields the RentButter report returns for your state. Revisit this choice if your state or city adopts an application-fee cap, or you acquire a property in one of the fair-chance jurisdictions above.

DoorLoop

DoorLoop belongs in this comparison with a condition attached: it is a property-management suite that includes screening, not a screening service, and it should never be purchased solely to obtain reports. The suite starts at $69 per month billed annually, with TransUnion screening reports at $45, $35, or $25 per report depending on plan tier, paid by the applicant by default — so the per-report price falls only as your subscription cost rises. The screening itself runs through DoorLoop's application flow using TransUnion's SmartCheck Plus package, and applicant disputes route to TransUnion.

Reports carry a thirty-day expiration once downloaded, and DoorLoop's help center tells you to download and attach them to the lease if you want to keep them — plan your record-keeping around that rather than assuming the platform holds them. DoorLoop's application tooling also permits configuring application fees above the screening cost; whether any application-fee markup is lawful depends on your state and local rules, and in several of the states above it plainly is not, so do not adopt one without a jurisdiction-specific check. Screening only looks cost-effective here when the suite is doing other work for you; on a screening-only basis, every other option on this page costs less. If what you actually need is the broader workflow — accounting, maintenance, owner reporting — evaluate DoorLoop against its real competitors at best landlord software and treat screening as one line in that decision. Before you subscribe, confirm: (1) total suite cost for your unit count and billing term, including any onboarding or implementation charge; (2) current per-report screening fees for your plan; (3) how you export your data if you cancel. Revisit this choice if you stop needing the suite's accounting and maintenance work, or your unit count drops below the tier that justified it.

Run a fair and defensible screening process

A service gives you a report; this process is what makes the decision defensible. Call it the Defensible Screening Sequence: eight steps that operationalize the gate from the top of the page, drawn from FTC guidance for landlords and HUD's screening guidance, with HUD's recommendations presented as best practices rather than a statutory checklist.

What counts as a consumer report

Information type	Who holds the obligation	What it changes for your decision
Consumer report — a background, credit, eviction, score, or reference report compiled by a screening company	The company acts as a consumer reporting agency; you, as the user, owe FCRA duties: permissible purpose, certification, and adverse-action notice	Every service on this page produces consumer reports, so the full FCRA process applies
Landlord reference collected through a reference-checking service	Still a consumer report under FTC guidance when a service compiles it for you	Outsourcing reference calls does not exit the FCRA
First-party information — what the applicant tells you, and reference calls you make yourself	You alone; the FCRA's consumer-report rules do not attach, but fair-housing law always applies	Verify it consistently for every applicant under the same written criteria

When in doubt, treat compiled third-party information as a consumer report and follow the full process.

1. Write your rental criteria first. Put every criterion in writing — income threshold, credit expectations, rental-history requirements — and tie each one to a specific report field; the worksheet at the end of this section pairs the two. For example, "gross monthly income of at least three times the rent, verified by pay stubs or an income-verification report" names both the criterion and the evidence that will test it. HUD's guidance recommends criteria that are precise and relevant to lease performance; overbroad screens that exclude applicants who would meet their obligations invite fair-housing risk.
2. Check your state and local overlay. Before ordering anything, confirm your jurisdiction's rules on application fees and applicant-paid screening, on the use of criminal and eviction records, and on locally protected classes such as source of income. The two tables above cover ten states on fees and nine jurisdictions on sequencing; if yours is not among them, your state attorney general's landlord-tenant resources and your city or county housing department are the right places to check. Where a rule is unclear, pause and get an answer rather than guessing.
3. Disclose, and get authorization. You may obtain a consumer report only for a permissible purpose — the specific, lawful reason the FCRA requires you to have before pulling a report, which for a landlord is evaluating an applicant for a tenancy — and written permission from the applicant is the clean way to establish it. The screening service will also require you to certify your permissible purpose — answer that certification accurately, because it is part of the legal record of the screening. Every service compared here builds an authorization or identity-verification step into its workflow — but the duty to have proper authorization is yours, not the vendor's.
4. Order through a legitimate consumer-reporting workflow only. Do not use personal people-search or data-broker lookup products for any part of a rental decision — including "informal" pre-screening before the real check. Do not use: non-FCRA people-search products for rental decisions; blanket bans on criminal or eviction history without jurisdiction-specific legal review; automated accept/reject decisions without human review; and exceptions you have not documented and would not apply to every similar applicant.
5. Review what is relevant, with human eyes. Match the report against your written criteria and nothing else. An eviction filing is not an eviction judgment; a criminal record is not evidence of current rental risk by itself; a credit score is not the same thing as ability to pay rent. HUD's guidance recommends independent review of any automated score or recommendation — a provider score is an input, not a legally sufficient reason on its own. An applicant may also ask for a reasonable accommodation in the screening process itself; treat that request as a separate question to answer rather than a criterion the applicant has failed. An assistance animal is not a pet, so pet criteria, pet fees, and pet deposits do not apply to one; if you are unsure how a request interacts with your criteria, ask the fair-housing attorney or local housing agency named at the top of this page before you answer the applicant.
6. Give the applicant room to correct the record. Screening data can be wrong. In July 2026, the FTC announced a proposed $2.25 million settlement with tenant-screening company RentGrow filed by the Department of Justice on the FTC's referral and subject to court approval, over allegations that duplicate criminal and eviction entries made applicants look worse than the underlying court records supported, and that disputes were mishandled. Treat a surprising record as a question to resolve — invite context, and point the applicant to the provider's dispute path — before you treat it as an answer.
7. Decide, and document the reason. Apply the same criteria, in the same way, to every applicant, and record the specific criterion that drove the outcome. HUD recommends giving specific reasons for denials; "the system flagged it" is not a reason.
8. Send the adverse-action notice, then dispose securely. An adverse action is any unfavorable action influenced by a consumer report — not only a denial. Under FTC guidance, requiring a co-signer, requiring a larger deposit, or charging higher rent than another applicant all count, even when the report was only one factor. Skipping the notice is not a paperwork lapse: the FCRA exposes a landlord who fails to send one to statutory damages and the applicant's attorney's fees, and an applicant who believes the underlying decision was discriminatory can take that to HUD or a state or local fair-housing agency separately. Deposit amounts carry their own state rules — see security deposit rules by state before an adverse-action decision involves one. Keep a copy of every notice you send with your screening file. When the process ends, retain report data only as long as your provider's terms and applicable law require, restrict access to it, and dispose of it securely.

Criteria-to-report-field worksheet

Step 1 of the Defensible Screening Sequence is easier with the columns filled in. Write your own version before you order anything; the fourth column is the one that sends you back to the jurisdiction section above.

Your criterion	The report field that evidences it	How you apply it to every applicant	The jurisdiction check it depends on
Income at a stated multiple of rent	Income verification, or an income-estimate report where offered	The same multiple for every applicant, with subsidized rent handled consistently	Local source-of-income protection, and how a voucher counts toward the multiple
Credit history at a stated threshold	Full credit report, or a screening score with your own interpretation	The same threshold and the same documented exception process for everyone	None federally; confirm any local limits on credit-based denials
No unresolved rental judgment within a stated period	Eviction-related report	The same lookback for everyone, with filings distinguished from judgments	Whether eviction records are returned for your state, and any limit on their use
Criminal history within a stated period, individually assessed	Criminal background report	Individualized assessment every time; never a blanket ban	Fair-chance sequencing and lookback limits — the rule that changes your order of operations
Verifiable identity	SSN or identity verification	Required of every applicant, no exceptions	None; but note the applicant controls the timing

Adverse-action notice checklist

Step 8 is the one landlords most often get half right. Copy these five lines into your own notice template and keep a copy of every notice you send:

• The name, address, and telephone number of the consumer reporting agency that supplied the report.
• A statement that the agency did not make the decision and cannot explain why it was made.
• Notice of the applicant's right to a free copy of the report from that agency within 60 days.
• Notice of the applicant's right to dispute the accuracy or completeness of the information.
• The date, the applicant's name, and the specific written criterion the decision rested on, kept in your file even where it does not appear in the notice.

What to verify before you pay

Every provider promise on this page can change, and several decisive facts are never on the pricing page at all. Run the same Ten-Question Provider Check against every candidate, put dates and answers next to each question before you open an account, and keep the answers with your screening records:

1. Payer legality. May the applicant be charged for screening at this amount, at this property, under current state and local law?
2. Exact report fields. Which criminal, eviction, credit, income, and identity fields will actually be returned for your property's state and city — not nationally?
3. Data sources and matching. Where do the records come from, and how does the service prevent mismatched or duplicate entries?
4. Criteria fit and score transparency. Can you apply your own written criteria, and does the service explain what any score or recommendation is based on?
5. Human review. Is anyone reviewing automated results before you see them — and if not, what is your own review step?
6. Applicant dispute contacts. Exactly where does your applicant go to get their copy and dispute an error, and how long does resolution take?
7. Sequencing support. If your jurisdiction requires a conditional offer or prequalification before the criminal check, does this service support that order — and what does it do if you order the standard bundle by mistake?
8. Support access. Who answers when a report stalls at identity verification the week your unit sits vacant?
9. Export and cancellation. If you leave, what happens to your records, how long are reports available, and what does cancellation require?
10. Total recurring cost. Per completed screening, what is the true total — subscription share plus report fee plus add-ons plus any applicant-paid amounts — stated on one consistent basis?

Where a provider's answer is "not disclosed," treat that as an answer too: this page marks unknowns rather than assuming them, and your purchase decision should do the same. If more than a couple of these answers push you toward a broader platform, the real decision may be software, not screening — that comparison lives at best landlord software.

Match your situation to a tenant screening service

The free steps come first: written criteria, your local-rule check, and your authorization and adverse-action process cost nothing and determine whether any purchase makes sense. With that gate cleared, the table below compresses this page into shortlist moves — and "no service yet" remains a legitimate pick. Every option here is a long-term-rental tool; nothing on this page evaluates short-term-rental software, which has a different compliance stack and its own pages.

Your situation	Shortlist move	Confirm before a demo or signup
One to three units, screening occasionally, self-managing	Pay-as-you-go screening: SmartMove, or RentPrep's complete package if you want review	Payer legality where you rent; which records return for your state; how the applicant disputes errors; your adverse-action notice process
An applicant with complex or out-of-state history	A human-reviewed package: RentPrep	What the screener review covers; FCRA dispute handling; whether criteria stay yours, applied consistently under fair-housing law
Building a full leasing workflow while staying free	Integrated platform screening: TurboTenant	Applicant-fee legality and amount; report fields for your state; identity-verification timing; landlord-pay option setup
Property in a fair-chance jurisdiction that sequences the criminal check	None yet — resolve the required order first in the fair-chance table, then pick a service that supports it	Which step must come first; whether your shortlist supports the two-bundle workflow; the local lookback limit and individualized-assessment duty
Owner-occupied duplex, triplex, or house hack	Check the exemption before you design anything: several of the fair-chance laws above exempt small owner-occupied properties, and the exemption decides which rules bind you	The exact unit and occupancy test in your jurisdiction; whether the exemption covers room rentals; that fair-housing law still applies in full either way
An applicant paying with a housing voucher or other protected income	Any service — the report is rarely the exposure here; the income multiple you apply to subsidized rent is	Whether your local law protects source of income; how voucher income counts toward your rent multiple; that the multiple is applied identically to everyone
Owning at a distance, in another state	Weight published turnaround and support access, not just price: SmartMove for stated same-day delivery, or TurboTenant if a local contact will manage showings	Whether the service publishes a turnaround at all; who answers when a report stalls; the record rules of the property's state rather than your own
Ten or more units, outgrowing spreadsheets	A suite decision on the landlord-software comparison linked above, with DoorLoop on that list	Total suite cost on one basis; per-report fees by plan; data export at cancellation; that screening still runs through your written criteria and adverse-action process

One scorecard for every candidate: whichever names survive your shortlist, run each one through the same Ten-Question Provider Check above — the same questions, in the same order, for every provider — so the comparison stays symmetric and every option answers for its FCRA and fair-housing support, not just its price.

Alternatives and when to choose no provider yet

A screening service is not mandatory, and sometimes it is premature. You can verify a great deal yourself: call prior landlords and employers directly, review the applicant's own documents, and apply your written criteria to what you learn. The FCRA's consumer-report rules do not attach to checks you personally perform, though fair housing always applies, some states regulate landlord-conducted background investigations and application fees regardless of the FCRA, and the moment a service compiles references or records for you, you are back in consumer-report territory.

For questions a report cannot answer — an unusual record, an accommodation request, a source-of-income rule — your local housing agency, a fair-housing organization, or a landlord-tenant attorney is the right next step, not a bigger report. The same escalation applies to automated-screening concerns and to any report fact the applicant contests that you cannot resolve through the provider's dispute process.

And choose no provider yet whenever the gate is open: criteria not yet written, local fee or record rules unverified, authorization language unprepared, or no adverse-action process ready. If you are earlier in the journey than screening — the property is not yet listed, or you are still deciding whether to rent it out at all — start with how to rent out your house and return here when an applicant is in sight.

Tenant screening FAQs

Can I make the applicant pay for the screening fee?

Only where applicable law allows it. Vermont bars application fees outright and Massachusetts leaves them off the short list of charges a landlord may collect; New York caps the fee at the actual cost or $20, whichever is less. Check the state fee table above, then your city or county, before choosing applicant-pay. Among the services here, SmartMove and RentPrep's complete package offer a payer choice where permitted, TurboTenant defaults to applicant-paid with a landlord-pay option, and RentPrep's background-only package is landlord-pay only.

Does tenant screening hurt the applicant's credit score?

Tenant screening is typically run as a soft inquiry, which does not lower the applicant's credit score the way a hard inquiry can. Each provider documents its own inquiry type, though, so confirm on the provider's current pages before you reassure an applicant — and remember that the screening's outcome, not the inquiry, is what carries legal obligations for you.

Can I deny an applicant based on the screening score alone?

No — a provider score or recommendation is an input, not a decision. HUD's guidance recommends independent review of automated results, criteria relevant to lease performance, and specific reasons for denials. Connect any decision to a written criterion you can name, and remember the adverse-action notice is owed whenever report information influenced the outcome.

What happens if an applicant disputes their report?

The applicant disputes with the screening company, not with you: under the FCRA, they can get a free copy of the report within 60 days of an adverse action and dispute inaccurate information. Your part is the accurate notice naming the agency — and, as a practice HUD recommends, holding the decision open long enough to consider a correction.

How long does tenant screening take?

The clock is set by the slowest dependency, which is usually the applicant: every service here waits on applicant authorization or identity verification before releasing a report. On official pages, SmartMove states most reports arrive the same day after identity verification, and TurboTenant states additional verification checks can add 24–48 hours. Your own review, applicant context, and any adverse-action step add time after delivery.

How much does tenant screening cost?

Landlord-paid packages among the four services compared here run $25 to $49 per screening (per applicant); applicant-paid fees run $45 to $55. Who may be charged, and how much, is set by your state and sometimes your city — see the state fee table for ten states, and the cost comparison for what each option totals across a low, base, and high year.

Choose the workflow, then the service

The order of operations is the whole answer, and the Defensible Screening Sequence above is that order: written criteria, local-rule check, authorization and adverse-action readiness — then, and only then, a provider whose workflow fits how you rent and can return the records your criteria test where your property sits. Compare the four options against your own answers to the Ten-Question Provider Check, using provider facts verified July 23 to August 10, 2026 and rechecked before you rely on them, since screening prices, coverage, and terms change without notice. When the screening choice is settled, the rest of the leasing sequence — application, lease, move-in — is laid out in the first time landlord checklist.

Sources and last verified date

Last verified: August 10, 2026 Next review: November 10, 2026, or sooner if a provider or a named jurisdiction changes its rules.

Federal

• Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know — Federal Trade Commission — consumer-report scope, permissible purpose and authorization, adverse-action definition and notice contents, and disposal duties for landlords.
• Guidance on Application of the Fair Housing Act to the Screening of Applicants for Rental Housing (Apr. 29, 2024) — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, FHEO — fair-housing application to screening regardless of technology; recommendations on relevant criteria, transparency, specific reasons, corrections, and independent review.
• What should I do if my rental application is denied because of a tenant screening report? — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — applicant rights to the adverse-action notice, a free report copy within 60 days, and dispute of inaccurate information.
• RentGrow to Pay $2.25 Million to Settle FTC Allegations the Company Violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and FTC Act (July 9, 2026) — Federal Trade Commission — current enforcement context for screening-report accuracy and dispute handling.
• Fair Housing Assistance Program agencies — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — directory of the state and local government agencies that enforce fair housing law in each jurisdiction.
• State attorneys general — USAGov — official directory used to route application-fee and screening-fee questions to each state's governing authority.

State application and screening fee rules

• California Civil Code § 1950.6 — California Legislative Information — actual-cost limit, CPI-adjusted statutory maximum, itemized receipt, refund of unused portion, and the no-available-unit restriction.
• Tenant Screening and Application Fees — Berkeley Rent Board — a government source publishing a current-year California maximum; used to disclose the conflict between published figures.
• Colorado Revised Statutes § 38-12-903 — processing-cost limit, equal-amount requirement, portable-screening-report exception, disclosure and receipt duties. Statute text via legal publisher.
• Massachusetts General Laws c. 186, § 15B — the four charges a landlord may require before a tenancy begins.
• How much can a landlord charge? — Massachusetts Legal Help — legal-aid explanation of the § 15B list and the case law treating application fees as outside it.
• New York Real Property Law § 238-a — New York State Senate — the $20-or-actual-cost cap, the 30-day recent-report waiver, and the copy-and-invoice condition on collecting the fee.
• Oregon Revised Statutes § 90.295 — average-actual-cost limit, one charge per 60-day period, receipts, and refund duties. Statute text via legal publisher.
• Texas Property Code § 92.3515 — tenant selection criteria notice, signed acknowledgment, and refund of fee and deposit where the notice was not made available.
• 9 V.S.A. § 4456a — Vermont General Assembly — prohibition on residential rental application fees and the accepted forms of identification for a background or credit check.
• Virginia Code § 55.1-1203 — $50 application-fee ceiling exclusive of third-party out-of-pocket screening costs, and the amendment scheduled for July 1, 2027.
• RCW 59.18.257 — Washington State Legislature — the written pre-screening notice that conditions any charge, the actual-and-customary cost limit, and the statutory adverse-action notice form.
• Wisconsin Administrative Code ATCP 134 — Wisconsin Legislature — the credit-check fee rule at ATCP 134.05(4), its cross-reference to the maximum in Wis. Stat. § 704.085(1)(a), and the notice and report-copy duties.

Fair-chance and criminal-record screening rules

• Just Housing Amendment: information for landlords — Cook County Commission on Human Rights — landlord-facing guidance and the commission's contact route.
• Just Housing Amendment screening process (rev. Jan. 27, 2022) — Cook County Commission on Human Rights — the county's published prequalification-first sequence, three-year lookback, individualized assessment, and dispute right.
• Just Housing Amendment evaluation — Cook County Commission on Human Rights — the amendment's adoption and the February 1, 2020 enforcement date.
• NYC Fair Chance Housing Notice — New York City Commission on Human Rights — the conditional-offer trigger, the reviewable-conviction categories and their five- and three-year measurement, the never-reviewable categories, and the applicant's response and individualized-assessment rights.
• Fair Chance in Housing Act — New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Division on Civil Rights — conditional-offer requirement, the six-, four-, and one-year lookbacks by degree of indictable offense, individualized assessment, and withdrawal standard.
• D.C. Code § 42–3541.02 — Council of the District of Columbia — the pre-offer inquiry ban, the pre-fee criteria disclosure, the seven-year and listed-offense limits, and the withdrawal standard.
• Returning citizens and housing — DC Office of Human Rights — enforcement from October 1, 2017, the written-reason requirement, and the applicant's 20-day records request and the provider's 10-day response.
• Montgomery County Code § 27-15A — Fair criminal history and credit screenings in rental housing — conditional-offer sequence, excluded record categories including the two-year misdemeanor rule, the seven-day rescission delay, and the application and posting disclosure duties.
• Ronald V. Dellums Fair Chance Access to Housing Ordinance — Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board — the prohibition on inquiring into or acting on criminal history, the sex-offender-registry exception, and the owner-occupied exemptions.
• Fair Chance FAQ for rental property owners and managers — City of Berkeley — the ordinance's March 10, 2020 effective date and its scope.
• Fair Chance Access to Housing Ordinance — City of Oakland — Oakland Municipal Code chapter 8.25, its February 4, 2020 effective date, and the owner-occupied exemptions.
• Rental housing laws in Ann Arbor — City of Ann Arbor — the Fair Chance Access to Housing Ordinance's application to landlords with one or more units in the city.
• Ann Arbor Code of Ordinances, Chapter 122 — Fair Chance Access to Housing — the adverse-action notice contents, the opportunity to respond before denial, and the public-housing and permanent-supportive-housing carve-outs.
• Fair Chance Ordinance — City of Detroit, Civil Rights, Inclusion and Opportunity Department — the city's own description of the ordinance, the complaint route, and the misdemeanor penalty; the covered-landlord threshold and sequence are not published there.

Provider documentation

• Disclaimer — TransUnion SmartMove — criminal-record availability by state (rev. 1/14/2026), eviction-record exclusions and limitations (rev. 8/4/2026), and the phased-screening jurisdictions requiring the non-criminal bundle first.
• Pricing — TransUnion SmartMove — SmartCheck package prices and contents, tax basis, payer choice where permitted, no-subscription model, and same-day delivery language.
• How It Works — TransUnion SmartMove — invite, applicant identity-verification and consent, and report-delivery workflow.
• Adverse Action Template — TransUnion SmartMove — provider-supplied notice resource; landlord responsibility remains.
• Rental Screening Disputes — TransUnion — applicant dispute process for TransUnion rental-screening reports.
• Tenant Screening Packages & Pricing Options — RentPrep — package prices and contents, payer options, FCRA-certified screener review, and Stessa report delivery.
• Terms and Conditions — RentPrep — authorization, criteria, adverse-action, decision responsibility, and data-handling terms placed on the landlord user.
• Pricing — TurboTenant — free plan scope and the paid-plan structure.
• Premium plans and pricing — TurboTenant — paid-plan pricing by units managed and the feature grid, including screening-fee and verification tiers.
• What is the Difference between the Rental Applications vs. Screening Reports? — TurboTenant Help Center — applicant screening fee and the reduced fee for Pro plan subscribers.
• Screening Reports — TurboTenant Help Center — RentButter workflow, applicant approval and identity verification, and report-timing language.
• How Do I Read a Tenant Screening Report? — TurboTenant Help Center — nationwide coverage statement, state suppression rules, the unsupported two-phase jurisdictions, and the FCRA notice pointer.
• Viewing Your Screening Report in TurboTenant (and How to Request a Copy) — TurboTenant Help Center — how applicants obtain their report copy from RentButter.
• Can the Landlord Pay the Screening Fee? — TurboTenant Help Center — landlord-pay workflow and its timing constraints.
• Pricing — DoorLoop — suite starting price and per-plan tenant-screening fees.
• Tenant Screening Overview — DoorLoop Help Center — TransUnion integration, report scope, and application-decision tracking.
• Rental Applications Overview — DoorLoop Help Center — identification of the SmartCheck Plus package behind DoorLoop screening reports.
• Request Screening Reports from TransUnion — DoorLoop Help Center — thirty-day report expiration, the download-to-lease workaround, and the routing to TransUnion's jurisdiction list.